mKieley: Studio Furniture Maker, Mentor & Arts Educator

Posted on January 19, 2023 by okyay

After teaching for more than 25 years at universities and colleges in Los Angeles, I am now looking forward to the possibility of new teaching opportunities. 

I was fortunate to create a course in art, innovation, and creativity skills, called Visual Thinking/Art 350, which I taught at Loyola Marymount University from 1997 until December 2021.

I have also taught 3-D design and an introduction to interior design at Otis College. And a few years after I graduated from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-arc), I co-taught an intensive introduction to architecture called Making + Meaning, to future graduate students with no background in design. The methodology of this course was based on the principles of The Bauhaus, and the innovative approaches of Black Mountain College. The five-week program had 40 hours of class time per week (!), and quickly got students up to speed with architectural drawing skills, the theory of design, and a basic history of contemporary architecture.

In 2020 I relocated to the California desert, and I’m now spending 75% of my time there, and 25% of my time in Los Angeles. During my first 12 years at LMU, I taught face-to-face classes. After extensive research on the various strategies for effective online learning, I focused on VoiceThread,*, and NearPod, along with other apps, evolving Visual Thinking to a hybrid format class. https://edtechexplore.wordpress.com

I am now seeking new opportunities for online teaching. I believe there are several subjects that I am highly qualified to teach. Visual Thinking (Art 350) fulfilled a core requirement at Loyola in “creativity.“ I taught a diverse mix of students who were focused on various majors from science, to business, and the arts. The essence of my message is that all of us can benefit from growing our creativity to express ourselves and get us through the tough moments that inevitably come up. Confidence in our own creativity can help us to prosper, and to be open to new directions as our careers evolve. I have written about this extensively and shared projects from my courses at CreativGrowth.com

-Michael 

PDF Resume Link

*I first learned about VoiceThread at a teaching conference presentation by Michelle Pacansky-Brock. She had just won an award for the innovative, creative use of VoiceThread. I was inspired when I met her at the MoblEd online learning event at Pasadena City College in 2009. Thanks to her, I now have an archive of 150 VoiceThreads. https://voicethread.com/blog/voicethread-effects-on-learning/

DTLA Graffiti Mural Tour
Details about my career as an art and design educator.
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Finding my WHY’s

Posted on June 7, 2024 by okyay

I have spent thousands of hours developing methods to cut through these blocks. My greatest pleasure as a teacher is to see that look of confidence in the eye of someone who’s writing, drawing, or inventing a business which goes far beyond what they previously believed was possible.

All of us are capable of being surprised at how far we can go in building something new.

I think the first time I found my WHY was when I was 13 years old living in suburbia in a family where no one was an artist. I asked my mom for oil paints for my 13th birthday. She ordered them, and a few days later we went down to the Sears store in our town, and picked them up. I started painting immediately using oil on canvas boards. I still have that painting 56 years later. Of course it’s a pretty funky painting, but it led to hundreds of other paintings, sculptures, and pieces of furniture.

I discovered my next WHY, when after a few false starts at other universities, I began my architecture degree at a freeform, experimental architecture school in Santa Monica. I had been a loner, who found most of my connections with (mostly deceased) writers (Rimbaud, Gaston Bachelard, Freud, Dylan Thomas, Emily Dickinson…to name a few). But at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-arc) I found my tribe.! 

SCI-arc took me from suburban bumpkin to hungry young urban artist. 

I earned 3 advanced degrees (architecture, sculpture, psychotherapy) over a thirteen year period. I hadn’t give much thought to being a teacher, but a friend working at a private university needed someone with knowledge of design, art, and psychology, which led to what turned out to be one of the best things in my life. I spent 24 years teaching a class called Visual Thinking (which could be anything, right?) 

Teaching, encouraging, building creative confidence in young people turned out to be my third WHY.

I had a fantastic time. My students sensed I was teaching in a different way, and that I really cared about their creative growth. And remarkably, I had a huge amount of academic freedom, which was a surprise. Lucky me. 

My next step is teaching a global, more diverse mix of people in my own independent online classes. 

images of art for CreativeGrowth.coach
Sometimes to make a great painting, you have to make a mess
Colored ink painted lanterns
A nonprofit art education project.
It’s true, art is better when made in places of beauty.
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Why I’m making breeze block screens out of the best plywood in the world…

Posted on October 11, 2021 by okyay

I have been using a product called Finland Ply for about 30 years. It was originally created to be the strongest material for concrete forms, but also can make very nice furniture, work benches, and room dividers.

I love the look of the Palm Springs Modern homes in the “Alexander Tracts,” such as in the Rancho Las Palmas neighborhood. Since I don’t know how to build a masonry wall, but I DO HAVE several CNC machines which can carve anything I draw on my computer, I thought, “Why not make Breeze Block design with this totally waterproof, acid-resistant plywood, which comes in a beautiful range of colors?”

So I did.

My house in the Hi Desert in California is a sort of test lab for experiments with advanced wood working.

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PS modern > Hi Desert

Posted on October 11, 2021 by okyay

I moved to the Hi Desert in June ’20. I have always been fond of the Alexander modern tract homes, but spending more time walking through these neighborhoods, I wanted my place in the Hi Desert to evolve to a similar style.

One of the classic elements is a “Breeze Block” screen at the front of the house to create a semi-private divider between the interior and the street.

Here are some photos I took in the Las Palmas area of Palm Springs. Creating 3d drawings of Architectural Designs, and Interiors I think is one of most valuable things I do for my design clients. I’m enjoying be my own client for a while as I transform my Hi Desert home!

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ADU Home Tour: LA Design Festival

Posted on June 25, 2019 by okyay

I enjoyed the Home Tour of six new accessory dwelling units (ADU’s)  on June 22nd, organized by the LA Design Festival.

The homeowners and architects were welcoming and informative.

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Thinking about the ‘sanctuary’ aspects of a home office.

Posted on February 7, 2019 by okyay

I am designing a large home office for a client, which has me thinking about how I can make sure my home office is optimal.

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Schindler-esque

Posted on September 7, 2017 by okyay

Rudolph Schindler has always been my favorite LA modernist. I’ve had a fondness for these asymmetric angular side tables for a long time. I’m working on my own variation, with softer curves, and instead of generic plywood, I’ll use one of my favorite Italian laminates from TreeFrog.

 

 

A more curvaceous variation of some Schindler end tables.

 

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Sculptural Lights – part 3

Posted on January 16, 2017 by okyay

We’ve been working on these for a long time. Thanks to a new toy, a laser cutter, we can precisely cut any shape we draw in Acrylic, and have it in our hand a few minutes later. By heating it afterwards we can bend the pieces, most of which are leaf-shaped into almost any form.

SconceLaserCutHack

Just a sketch quickly thrown together. I was thinking of buying a nice stock sconce, then heat bending some of my acrylic ‘leaves’ to amp up it’s color and form.

I’ve been looking through my past work, and now that I’m realizing I can lean on other people’s expertise, I would like to design interesting interactive features.

I saw a number of interesting effects at the Enchanted Forest displays at Descanso Gardens in December.

Interactive Lighting at Descanso Gardens Luminous displays at Descanso Gardens

 

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Rapid Cabinet Making…

Posted on January 5, 2017 by okyay

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Kitchen Dreams (not nightmares)

Posted on January 4, 2017 by okyay

Our first qualification as kitchen designers is that we love to cook. Our design qualifications include a 5 year professional degree in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, 30 years experience in fabrication, fine furniture craft, sculpture lighting expertise, and the fact the we develop all our designs in 3d so “What You See is What You Get.”

In any design project our greatest ambition is to see a huge smile on our clients faces at the end of the project. To achieve that we provide options. There is no worse feeling than feeling ‘Meh’ at the end of a remodel that has involved time, money and disruption. Why go for that if you don’t get something great.

Kitchen myths: Ikea has the best value, and Home Depot the lowest prices. Drawing my kitchen on a napkin will get me the result I want. I know what I want. Hiring a professional is a waste of money, it isn’t that hard. Designers are dictators and I’ll get their style not mine. I can’t afford a true custom kitchen. I don’t believe that having a professional design can actually save me money, as well as protect me from that terrible feeling that I spent money and effort and lived with the remodel and got a lackluster result.

Value: my main job is to provide you options, establish a budget, and get things done with excellent quality and a lasting transformation, that makes your life better every day when you’re preparing food and entertaining people.

My job is to show you relatively unlimited options, sources I have acquired over three decades of experience in architecture and design.

My job is to guide material selection and draw details that are clear, so that everyone involved in the project is ‘on the same page.’

What made our most recent kitchen project success?

We didn’t scrimp on design time with clients. We had a dialogue with each other. Seems that we all really enjoyed collaborating. For the first time we outsourced to a high-tech manufacturer. That means that the cabinets are built with the same precision as super custom cabinetry imported from Europe. And instead of taking 3 months which is the normal European kitchen lead time, the cabinets are ready in 10 days. The fabricator is less than an hour away from clients on the Westside, which meant delivery was easy.

As designers, we have to know that the materials, the details, and the dimensions are exactly correct. Frankly, most non-Pros would have a lot of trouble getting the data down right, which isn’t due to a lack of intelligence, it’s the difference between working on your own project, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and having the experience of working on several hundred projects.

What do we want as designers? The number one thing is a big smile from our clients when we’re done.

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